Once her drink arrived—something murky and herbal-looking in a mug that felt like it weighed a full pound—she took a cautious sip, then fixed her gaze on him.
“So,” she said. “This is our third and final contractual date.”
He gave a small nod. “If that’s how you’d like to see it.”
There was a pause. Comfortable wasn’t the word. Familiar, maybe.
And then, instead of launching into anything damage-control-ish or about their not-quite-romantic, not-quite-investigative entanglement, he said, “Bingley mentioned your father used to do stand-up.”
Elizabeth blinked. It was not what she expected.
“That was his side hustle. He runs a small chain of grocery stores in Shelburne, Vermont. Still does.”
Darcy gave a small nod. “That’s… unexpected.”
“Most things about my family are.”
He gave a quiet breath of amusement. “We chatted a lot, but now that I think about it… you never said much about them.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said with a small smile, “remember we agreed to save that for in person.”
He nodded, as though the memory had just come back. “We did. However, we didn’t get to it last time.”
“We were locked in a frozen yoghurt shop.”
That earned a real smile from him—and for the first time, Elizabeth noticed how it softened his entire face. It made him, annoyingly, almost twice as handsome. She hadn’t registered it the last time, even though he’d smiled then too. Maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to.
“So,” he said, leaning forward just slightly. “Tell me.”
Elizabeth leaned back slightly, eyeing him. “Well. You already know Jane. Easton Ridge School, eighth-grade teacher. Too kind for her own good.”
“I can believe that.”
“Then there’s Kitty. She works at a marketing firm but mostly posts TikToks about her coworkers. Lydia is in nursing school, or so she says—jury’s still out on how many classes she’s actually attending. Mary is our resident philosopher. Took a year off after her theology degree and now critiques YouTube content from a moral standpoint.”
He arched a brow. “You’re not joking.”
“I wish I was. They’re all... chaotic. In their own way. But we grew up with laughter and weird food combinations and yelling over the TV. It wasn’t neat, but it was ours.”
Darcy’s silence wasn’t uncomfortable. He was listening, properly. Eyes focused, attention undivided.
“And your mother?” he asked.
“She’s with her husband,” Elizabeth said, then added with a wry smile, “and very much committed to the art of being over-involved.”
Darcy tilted his head slightly, amused.
“She spends her days managing Dad’s stores without actually managing them, calling her daughters ten times a day, and reminding each of us—at least once a week—that we’re not getting any younger. You know… as mothers do.”
Darcy gave a short breath of amusement. “Sounds like a force.”
“She is,” Elizabeth said, sipping the drink. “A full-blown, well-meaning, husband-hunting hurricane.”
He smiled again. “And your dad copes with this how?”
“By making deeply inappropriate jokes at the dinner table and pretending he doesn’t hear half of what she says. It’s a system.”
Darcy leaned back slightly. “A functioning one, apparently.”
